November 23, 2017 • 39 mins
Today, the terms "citizen" and "consumer" are often used interchangeably by authors, journalists and politicians. To some experts, this shift has disturbing implications. But how important is a word? How did this switch occur, and why?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben.
My name is Noel, citizen Null, that is Citizennal. Yes,
not a consumer. Well, you know, I do consume quite
a bit of things, but I like to think of
myself more as a conscientious citizen of these here United States.
Noel and I just for peek behind the curtain. We
(00:45):
have been in the studio for a while today, working
on working on a couple of different projects. Right. Yeah,
we have another show called Stuff They Don't Want You
to Know, and we just spent an hour and a
half talking about John F. Kennedy. So we're both a
little punchy, but hopefully that will translate into an entertaining
episode of ridiculous history. That's right, that's our show. Here
we are. So we've had a crazy time, you know,
(01:09):
starting this show and looking at not just single historical
episodes in isolation, we've been exploring the context in which
these events occur. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, And one
thing that I think fascinates both of us is how
stuff that would seem on the surface really small has
(01:33):
these universal, ubiquitous and important, uh implications. Absolutely, and that
is absolutely the case today with our topic of when
and why did America start calling its citizens consumers? Which
is such a good question. And before you brought this
(01:55):
to me, I had never thought about this. Like I
it just slid by my mind, and I was reading
so many different stories, you know, news stories, essays, creative
nonfiction where people, pundits, experts, authors used these phrases interchangeably,
which is kind of weird when you think about it,
(02:16):
you know. Uh So, there was a recent opinion piece
that was published in a political newspaper called The Hill.
And in this piece, which is titled how Trump's immigration
plans hurt American Citizens Pocketbooks, the author Maurice Goldman criticized
the Trump administration's plans for crackdown on immigration by pointing
(02:40):
to the cost of building the infamous border wall, the
cost of hiring enforcement agents, the cost of reducing legal
immigration channels, but a particular interest for our purposes today.
Goldman used the phrase consumer in in the body of
(03:04):
the text in the title it's citizen, but he notes
you the consumer will pay for you know, the the plans,
the political plans if this wall and stuff goes through.
And like you just said, I mean, is this an
issue of semantics or was this intentional? Um? And the
(03:24):
answer to that is pretty interesting. Um, it's hard to
say quite when this took place, but in the last
handful of years there has been an increasing tendency to
use the term consumer interchangeably with citizen. And that's even
when the conversation has to do with the economy. Yeah,
(03:45):
and again it's it seems like on the surface a
small thing, but political experts, growing numbers of political experts
are concerned with this, and they're arguing that the choice
of words signals a shift in how we uh see
ourselves as individuals participating in the United States, right, and
(04:07):
what our role is in American society. So the people
who are concerned are saying that this is moving the
individual away from this idea of citizenship working with others
in collaboration towards some common, greater good right, and toward
something else. Yes, I mean that's much more selfish and
(04:29):
an individualistic and based on the acquisition of things that
can also be turned around and applied to ideas. Or
the way our vote is almost equivalent to the way
we spend money exactly. And there's a professor named Jathan
(04:49):
Sadowski Jathan, Jathan j developed a list just now no
Jathan like Nathan, but with a J. I know, I've
never seen that one before. I know that's a new one.
Uh Here argues that using the term consumer interchangeably with
the term citizen has quote become part of our default discourse,
the normal way we view society and people, and he says,
(05:13):
just look at the recent presidential election. The consumer versus
citizen language is often used with analysts and pundits talk
about elections, and this goes to the point that that
Noel highlighted voters are just consumers with preferences, and the
election is a marketplace of products to choose from. To
(05:34):
continue to quote, in the store, we vote with our dollar.
We are told that elections are functionally the same thing.
You just use a ballot instead of a buck to
cast your vote. This understanding of democratic processes as a
marketplace is just one more place where the citizen is
overtaken by the consumer. End quote. And both of these
(05:55):
words have been around for centuries and centuries right. The
word citizen dates back to the thirteen hundreds. Originally it
meant the inhabitant of a city. Yeah, the entry and
the online Etymology Dictionary for citizen um says from site
citizen of the world translates in Greek to cosmopolites. Oh,
(06:19):
that's cool, that's a good one. On the other side,
the the evolution of citizen to mean what we take
it to mean today, a person who has both rights
in a society and responsibilities to that society. That didn't
come around until around sixteen ten. The term consumer arose
(06:40):
shortly after the original version of the term citizen. I
love the entry for that one in the online Etymology Dictionary.
It says quote one who squanders or wastes um agent
noun from consume in economic sense one who uses up
goods or articles opposite of producer, and that dates back
to seventeen Uh. Then it also says consumer goods is
(07:05):
attested from eighteen ninety um in consumers for a representative
basket of goods and services. And that actually is from
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yeah, so that's these are
These are legit sources, and no one is saying that
these words just suddenly emerged like in nineteen seventy or whatever,
(07:25):
the like many words in English. This is an evolving language, right,
and so a living language. So, like many other terms,
the term citizen and consumer have undergone evolution over the years,
and the question is what what these mean today? Right?
According to Michael Munger, who is the director of the Philosophy,
(07:50):
Politics and Economics Program at Duke University's Political Science Department,
the word consumer, although it existed, as we had said
for sent trees, it didn't really appear in print until
ben have you ever used done in a Google Ingram search?
I I only started because of this. Yeah, it's really interesting.
(08:13):
So you can actually like search for a combination of
words compared to words, and it will get all track
it over time as it appears in this you know,
vast online collection of books that Google has digitized. And
starting in eighteen hundred and going to the year two thousand,
this in gram search tracks the use of citizen versus consumer,
(08:34):
and this is in fractions of so starting in eighteen hundred,
citizen is a clear winner, with consumer very very low,
just like a tiny fleck above zero percent. And then
as time goes on, starting in around nineteen ten nine
to be precise, there is a significant spike in citizen
(08:57):
um and then and as this is going on, consumer
is kind of rising. Then there's a crossover point in
nineteen fifty six at which point consumer goes through the
roof UM and ending in two thousand. Consumer well above
citizen in terms of its use in literature. Right. Yeah.
(09:18):
And it's fascinating to see this in laid out in
an infographic form because Duel is absolutely correct. You can
see the the direct correlation. You can see the switch
point at which people from writers, authors at least started
preferring the term consumer to the term citizen, and now
(09:41):
it's used about three times as often. Uh. Monger theorizes
that this happened this, this change in the usage had
largely to do with the rise of progressive politics in
the twentieth century. And here's a quote from Monger quote.
The progressives primarily saw citizens as being helpless trapped by
arge forces, especially corporations, that citizens couldn't deal with. UM
(10:04):
and he attributes Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal social programs that
came about in the thirties, as well as Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society Effort in the sixties UM as reinforcing the
idea that participation in politics was mostly a way to
just get your share of the pie, you know, get
(10:25):
a piece. So it's it's less of a civic duty,
it's less of a what can I do for my
country and more of a what can my country do
for me? Exactly. And this increasing use of the term
consumer doesn't just apply to people who are writing about politics.
(10:46):
It applies to politicians themselves. And when we're talking about
President Johnson's Great Society stuff in the nineties sixties, we
are also examining the rise of something that would surprise
the average voter. Marketing, right, marketing, Yes, marketing, which means
(11:06):
that we are going to take a little bit of
a side trail into a man named Edward Burnet's and
Edward Bernez, as you know, is a is a guy
that you and I have spent a lot of time
on in the past. Yeah, he's sort of the big
grand Pappy of marketing. And this idea of selling things
(11:26):
to a mass audience including various methods from billboards, magazine
articles to later television think mad Men, you know the
television show, Um, the whole world that's depicted in that,
the Madison Avenue, UM kind of ad agency universe, um.
And it was for sellers of products like breakfast cereals
(11:47):
and cars and anti perch prints, all of these modern
things that everyone just had to have. Um. And today
you know, we can micro target people's preferences, you know,
using these campaigns in this massive amounts of data that
can be analyzed much much much more quickly than in
the past. Uh. And now it looks at individual voters
(12:09):
attitudes and their corresponding behavior um and can kind of
figure out what might be the best way to actually
reach them in the same way as you know, appealing
to somebody about a particular type of microwave meal. Right,
And that that in itself is important for us to
know that in itself is not inherently a bad thing. However,
(12:34):
it is an important thing, and it is crucial that
people be aware of what is happening. To tell me
a little bit about Bernet's Oh man, I'm so glad
you asked, Okay, so Edward Berne's get this nephew of
Sigmund Freud, true story Ampia coincidence, coincidence? Right? Uh? Edward
(12:58):
Edward Bernesee took a lot of psychological concepts and said, well,
how can we I hesitate to use the word weaponize,
but maybe maybe apply is a better word. He said,
how how can we apply these concepts about how the
workings of the human mind and translate them into quantifiable, predictable,
(13:24):
real world results. How can we push people not only
to make the decision we want them to make, but
to make them feel that it is their decision, that
they have agency in this choice. He has done so
much stuff, So I really appreciate that you mentioned the
concept of breakfast, right, so before Edward Burnet's the typical
(13:49):
breakfast in the in the United States would be something
like a cup of coffee and maybe a croissant or
as yes, yes, or you know, a bagel, a couple
of pieces of toast, maybe some butter. A bagel and toast.
That's a lot of carbs, dude. Yeah, you put the toast,
it's a it's a it's a toast sandwich. So you
(14:10):
get the bagel if the toast in between, that doesn't
sound very healthy. And that's actually kind of the point,
because what ended up being foisted upon the American consumer
was this idea of bacon for breakfast, right, yes, yeah,
Edward Berns, make no bones about it. Is the reason
that bacon became part of the American breakfast. Because without
(14:33):
getting too deep into it, here's what happened. In the
nineteen twenties, Edward Bernese was approached by a company called
the beach Nut Packing Company. They're the people who made
beech nut gum at the time, right, but they did
a lot of other stuff, and they had a lot
of other concerns. One of the big concerns was pork. Edward,
they asked the guy, we need to increase demand. We
(14:56):
have all this trash meat laying around, you know, how
do we uh a and foisted on the American public
right exactly just so. And he thought, well, we could
do the typical sort of advertisement at the time, where
we could just have somebody be like, hey, I'm cool
and where does suit and get a nice tie and
like bacon you should too, And that was, you know,
(15:18):
that was the approach that advertising used. But he did
something very different and he said, well, let me let
me conduct a quote unquote poll of doctors medical experts,
and let me let me twist the questions in such
a way that they will all end up agreeing or
appearing to agree that bacon is not only good for you,
(15:43):
but should be eaten by any person with half a
concern about their health early in the morning and give
them energy and substantial And that's the thing. It worked.
It not only did it work, but it continues to
work today. Edward Bernese, who could be the subject to
his own show, right, he went on to uh tie
(16:04):
smoking tobacco with women's suffrage. He went on to help
support propaganda pushing the American public, citizens or consumers, whatever
you want to call them, into supporting a coup in
South America. And he continues to influence things today. This
(16:25):
is one of the correlations, one of the one of
the points at which people stopped thinking about the average
voter as a citizen and started thinking about them as consumers. Well,
it's the way, you know, politicians have to essentially market
themselves uh and and and dress up their platforms in
(16:46):
such a way that appeals to different voting bases. Uh
and A lot of it is based on entirely based
on rhetoric, which you could, you know, kind of equate
to something like ad copy where it's like, sure, it's
technically true, and it's it's backed up by science or
like you know, fact, but at the end of the day,
it's this like packaged, curated version of the truth, and
(17:11):
that is the way things are today, and the government itself,
in fact, is is actually judged as if it were
a business, a consumer business. The American Customer Satisfaction Index
actually rates the federal government on how people feel about
their interactions with How am I how they feel? You
(17:32):
know what I'm saying. So there's Bernet's at work right now,
and it actually got a sixty percent positive rating in
which was up from sixty the previous year. So, um,
gonna'll be interested to know how how that ranks today, Yeah,
and the methodology behind it. People who have a problem
with this interchangeable use of citizen and consumer, uh, They
(17:54):
argue that there are fundamental differences between the two roles
in society and that they should not be confused. So
how about this. I want to outline some of these
proposed differences and see what you think. Sure, okay, So
is there an issue of morality? You know, earlier we
(18:17):
mentioned the concept of doing stuff for other people for
the greater good versus doing something for one's self. So
one of the proposed differences would be that the job
of any consumer is to always choose what works best
for them in the marketplace, regardless of any other considerations. Right,
(18:40):
that's what I do. I think that's that's also the
human condition, though, isn't it. You know? Yeah, But that
that there in lies the issue with this whole notion
of like being pulled away from the idea of being
part of a whole or being a member of a
team and going to a much more self serving attitude
that's kind of codified and bolstered by the use of
(19:02):
these these these words and the distinctions that they sort
of imply, I guess, right. Yeah, So then if a
by by this understanding, this difference is true, then by
virtue of voting, a consumer is saying what will make
me better directly now, whereas a citizen would be saying,
(19:23):
what can I do to improve the world conditions for
everyone from my neighbors? Yeah, yeah, like a rising tide
carries all vest And a good citizen then would be,
in their own way kind of kind of heroic or
very moral, that's what it sounds like, right, And a
good consumer would be getting the best deal. There's another difference,
(19:48):
which is that citizens are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty.
I'm doing my best to help the group, the community
of the nation, et cetera. I'm not sure how it's
going to work out, but I know my intentions are
what I believe to be good. Whereas a consumer says,
you know, if I'm if I'm paying for this service,
(20:09):
whether that's through time, whether that's through money, whether that's
through exchange of materials, then I need to be certain
that this transaction occurs, you know. So with with this idea, um,
there's the simplication that a citizen knows that society has
(20:31):
what HR departments around the world called areas of opportunity.
God do you remember that one? Do you know how
much I love these corporate terms? Yes? Yes, synergy Synergy
is their synergy and uh and cadence that's a new one,
making the rounds. Well, you know, the idea holds up though,
because the concept then would be that you and I
(20:54):
and everyone who has a vote understands that we can
play a part in improving society in whatever way we
think it should be improved, right, and that these problems
will not be fixed themselves. And then the on the
other side, the concept of a consumer would be that
(21:14):
someone expects to purchase essentially a product or a service,
and that the people providing that product or service, it's
on them to fix stuff. Right. So I voted for
you just do the thing, you know what I mean?
And uh, we we know that this is a very
(21:35):
very contentious thing. Well let's go through a little business.
This is a ridiculous history. Um, let's just talk a
little bit about the history of the idea of humans
as consumers. There's a fantastic article by Frank Trentman in
the Atlantic that has a couple of great quotes from
the famous American thinker Adam Smith, one of which is
a consumption is the soul, end and purpose of all production,
(21:59):
which was m his treatise, I guess you could call
it The Wealth of Nations from seventeen seventy six. That's
a pretty famous quote. A lesser known quote from him
that really sums up this whole idea comes from seventeen
fifty nine The Theory of Moral Sentiments, UM, where he
kind of really hones in on the as Trentman puts it,
(22:20):
the social and psychological impulses that cause us to want
to get a bunch of stuff, knickknacks, patty wax, gadgets, um.
And this quote again from Smith does a really good
job of summing all that up. He observed that people
(22:41):
wanted to quote stuff their pockets with little conveniences and
then buying coats with more pockets to carry even more
by themselves. Tweezer cases, elaborate snuff boxes, and other bobbles
might not have much use, but Smith pointed out what
mattered was that people looked at them as means of happiness. Um.
(23:02):
And he goes on to say that it was in
people's imaginations that these objects became part of a harmonious
system and made the pleasures of wealth grand and beautiful
and noble. And even you know, ancient Greek thinkers philosophers
from you know, Plato to St. Augustine Um, they kind
(23:24):
of condemned the pursuit of of stuff as as being
inherently wicked and self serving. Um. So there is this
history of the idea of being a citizen as being
much more important, and if it feels like throughout history,
obviously there there is that selfish impulse. But as a whole,
(23:45):
civilization and societies have largely maintained because of this notion
of you know, the whole is more important than the
individual parts and that we're all banding together to make
a better life for everyone. Yeah. Right, And this leads
us to something a pretty interesting theory that you've probably
(24:06):
heard of, which is the tragedy of the commons. And
the tragedy of the commons is this economic theory that says, uh,
if you're in a shared resource system, right, so, you're
in a community where everybody has like a common good
it's called water, air, nine LPs. Who knows, just like
(24:26):
it's something for the people, the way that you and
I typically order fries. Yeah. Um. The idea is that
when individual users are acting independently according to their own
self interests, they will tend to behave in ways that
deplete or spoil those common resources because everybody, everybody wants
(24:52):
their piece of the pie and would prefer not to
have to help create the pie, right And obviously, so
many people have argued complex ideological questions based on how
to address this dilemma of individuals trying to improve society,
(25:16):
to take a line from the Simpsons to ambigen society
or two improve themselves, even if such a thing might
have dangerous consequences right or unforeseen consequences down the road,
and it might sound. It might sound, folks, as if
Noel and I are dwelling on semantics, but we are not,
(25:40):
because it turns out that science backs this up. In
a two thousand twelve study in the journal Psychological Science UH,
they found that choice of words can exert a subtle
influence upon how we see ourselves, which then you know,
naturally influences how we behave. So in one part of
(26:00):
the study, people who answered a quote consumer response survey
tended to express more materialistic, self centered values. People who
did a survey that was called a citizen survey tended
to behave in a more a less selfish way. And
(26:21):
another part of the same survey, the researchers looked at
subjects with gave them a hypothetical situation where people um
had to join together and share water from a well,
and they were labeled as either consumers or citizens. And
the members of the study that got the consumer label
tended to be completely distrustful of their cohorts and just
(26:45):
didn't want to share the water. They just were a
little crotchety about it, and they did not feel as
though they were on a team or in partnership with
the other subjects, and just felt overall less tied to
or responsible for the experience, and you know well being
honestly of their compatriots, as opposed to those who were
(27:06):
labeled citizens, who felt just the opposite, right, right, And
now we we if we are called one name or another,
it tends to affect our behavior. Now we see this
article by Maurice Goldman becomes even more important. I don't
want to say insidious, but I do want to say important,
(27:26):
because you know, on some level it might feel I
don't know, condescending or dominutive to say, oh, you are
not so smart, right, you are easily influenced, right if somebody,
if somebody calls me a name, that shouldn't influence my
behavior already, but apparently it does. Apparently we are a
(27:48):
little bit easier to steer than we would like to think.
And this goes back to the Bernese thing, right, the
idea of a of a citizen versus a consumer in
terms of active versus passive rules. Did you know that
the I'm sure you've heard the use of the term
(28:08):
consumption um to refer to tuberculosis, you know, so, I
mean it was definitely had very very negative connotations of
going back to The Atlantic article from Frank treatmanny as
a section where he talks about some of the history
of the term consumption uh and the as he calls it,
the heavy burden that it carried. And it was originally
from the term the Latin term consumer, which first presented
(28:31):
itself in French in the twelfth century and then into
English and other European languages later. And of course it
meant as I said, with the etymological um origins earlier,
using up wasting kind of implied of food or any
other um consumables for lack of a better term um.
But like I said, the idea of tuberculosis or wasting
(28:55):
disease being called consumption because it had this inherently like
it just eats you up. And that was very much
a sign of being irresponsible and not looking out for
the greater good of your community or family, what have you,
not being a good citizen. And we would be remiss
if we didn't just mention for a second everyone's favorite
(29:16):
fictional consumptive, which is Val Kilmer playing Doc Holiday in
Tombstone Bloody Rack. Yeah, man, what does he say? Who's who? Huckleberry?
I'm your Huckleberty Oh Yeah, I'm your huck You're my Huckleberry,
and Romance for the Ages, Romance for the Ages, and
(29:38):
history for the Pages, which rhymes but doesn't really make
sense if you think about it. So. Josh Passik is
an assistant professor of Communications studies at the University of Michigan,
and he he draws some conclusions based on this shift,
(29:58):
and he says it seems to underscore a shift away
from viewing Americans is having responsibility our political system and
toward a more individualist view of what it means to
be American. So, in his mind, the role of a
citizen is more active and the role of a consumer
is more passive. And in his mind, these are two
(30:18):
different things, right, They're not synonyms. He says, your job
as an American citizen requires that you fulfill key democratic
norms such as being informed, deliberating about political issues, and
participating in civic and political life. As an American consumer,
he says, your actions are relevant only to the extent
that they respond to economic incentives. The responsibility to be
(30:41):
engaged and participatory is not your own, but instead depends
upon a system that is oriented to bring you in.
Unpack that for us ben Okay, sure, I would love to.
Uh so again. The idea, the idea of citizenship as
a responsibility, right, Like, I don't if you're a citizen,
you're not just supposed to show up and vote. You're
(31:05):
supposed to put some research time into it, right, and
be be aware. And you know, let's I mean not
for nothing, It's true that most people don't know their
congressional district. Yeah, I mean, if I'm being honest, I
voted the other day and there were a whole lot
of names on the ballot that I was not familiar with.
There were some races that I had followed very closely,
(31:25):
and I knew what I was signing up for. But
you know, it's very difficult to be completely informed about
every aspect of the political process. But I guess what
the takeaway here is is that you know, just you
got to try to do your homework and consider beyond
just you know, your personal stake, what might be good
for your entire community. Because you know, with names that
(31:47):
can recognize on the ballot, if I had voted for
somebody just out of sheer, you know, randomness, What if
I accidentally voted for a monster or voted to keep
an incumbent in power that had done bad things for
the community that needed to be replaced. You know. So, uh,
if if I had gone in with that consumer mentality
about what's good for me, you know, and and maybe
(32:09):
I'm guilty of that in a certain sense, I would
only know what directly impacted me, Whereas if I had
gone in with much more of a you know, citizen,
good citizen attitude, then maybe I would have thought about
more what would affect areas that don't even affect me directly.
You know. It's a it's a dilemma, and we are
we are talking about the influence of behavior. We want
(32:31):
to be very clear that we're not We're not a
show that's going to like lecture people about politics. Yeah
for us, this is for us. This is a dilemma. Though.
It's a dilemma, and it's kind of a thought experiment too. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah,
that's a good way to see it, because the question
and becomes you know, is one somehow better than the
other or they just different? I would say that they're different.
(32:54):
I would say that everybody has played the part of
a citizen. Everybody's played the part of it can sumer
at the same time, you know, you're not going into
uh Arby's for instance, who is not a sponsor of
the show of just thinking like different is good that
you're still around. Yeah, they're still getting funny commercials, but like,
you know, nobody's walking into Arby's and saying, you know,
(33:15):
at the at the soda fountain or at the little
ketchup stand, no one's saying like, what can I do
to make this ketchup stand better for everyone who comes
after me? Yeah? And you know, speaking to uh pass
ex quote about you know, as an American consumer, your
actions are relevant only to the extent they respond to
economic incentives, meaning and sometimes those incentives are just personal
(33:39):
fulfillment and you know pleasure. Uh and your jobs not
to read state you already said, Ben, but your job
as an American citizen requires you fulfill key democratic norms
just being informed and deliberating about political issues. So the
idea that uh, there is this gray area or this
kind of like fusion between the notion of a citizen
and a consumer is potentially problematic for people making choices
(34:02):
in in elections that actually help others or that if
that affect the greater good, If everyone's just voting for
you know what, we'll do good for themselves. And that
also plays into how politicians market themselves, you know, right right,
the same the same techniques that Edward Bernese pioneered are
(34:23):
now present not only in advertising, but are present in
a very real way in the political sphere. I gotta
tell you, man, did you ever did you did you
ever watch c SPAN? I mean, if if there's something
really crucial on, um, But now I have not not
(34:43):
just watch it like my grandpapa used to them. Yeah,
I used I used to. UM. I used to watch
c SPAN with my grandmother as well. Um, when Golden
Girls wasn't on. She loved Golden Girls. Hehaw and c
SPAN beautiful woman. You know it seems like a good mix.
And uh and uh. One of the things that got
me was years ago we were watching c SPAN at
(35:07):
her house and uh, a congress person was referring to
a a bill they were trying to pass as a product.
And then they said, we're going to get this product
out at the end of this time frame, and this
product is going to you know, be great for companies,
(35:29):
all interests of parties, stakeholders. And I didn't understand the
term because why would you call something like that a product.
You're selling it, You're selling it to your constituents. And
this guy, Frank Tripman, who wrote the article from the
Atlantic that I was talking about a little bit UM
is a professor of history at the University of London,
(35:50):
and he wrote a fantastic book called Empire of Things
How he became a world of consumers from the fifteenth
century to the one UM and he thinks that the
blurred jinction between these two UH cohorts, which ultimately have
become kind of the same thing, consumer and citizen, make
it really hard for people to come together to solve problems,
which is essentially what I was trying to get out.
(36:12):
We're both trying to get at ben Uh. And this quote,
I think really sums it all up nicely. Quote not
all consumers see the world in the same way, and
hence concerted action is very difficult. That's what I was
trying to get at. Where you know, when you have
a politician that's marketing themselves to a particular voter base,
and the um the desires of that voter base are
(36:32):
kind of a conflagration of like different UH sort of
self serving desires. So it's very difficult to like pick
out a platform or a thing or like to appeal
to all of these different you know angles and get
elected kind of requires some weird backwards logic and convoluted thinking,
you know, especially when so many of those interests might
(36:55):
be contradictory. Exactly right here we are seen here, we here,
we are. But history doesn't stop here. I have to
wonder know what future historians will make of this shift,
which again occurred without my knowledge at all. Like I
(37:16):
I did not notice other than my spider sense tingling
when I heard things laws referred to as products. Is
totally whooshed over my head. Man, I don't know. It's
a little insidious though, right, it kind of happens. It
just sort of kind of creeps in, you know, without
you even realize. Again, so are we citizens? Are we consumers?
(37:36):
I think it's a it's a choice we have to make.
I mean, obviously we're consumers when it comes to like,
you know, I like buying stuff. I like, you know,
nice clothes and things like that. But when you start
integrating that into the political process and how you vote,
as though it we're spending money and as though you're
being marketed to. That's problematic, I think, and it's an
(37:57):
interesting shift in history, and it's more than a little ridiculous.
It is, it is more than a bit ridiculous. We
hope that you find this dilemma or this this interesting
differentiation as fascinating as we do, and we'd like to
hear your thoughts. So please write into us and let
(38:18):
us know if you think this is a big deal,
if you think this is just relative, relatively small matter
of semantics. Uh, And most importantly, let us know if
you have found other linguistic shifts in your own experience,
and let us know what you think the implications of
(38:39):
those might be. You can write to Noel and I
at ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. But that's all.
You can find us on the internet to. Yeah, we're
on the social media. We've got a Facebook page, Ridiculous History.
Just google that and and give us a like. And also,
if you dig the show, please check us out on
iTunes and write us a nice review. That helps kind
(39:00):
of boost the show and the algorithm and all that,
and hopefully well people can discover it. Yeah, because we like,
you know, we like doing the show and we'd like
to continue doing it, so thanks for joining us for
this episode and we hope to see you next time
on Ridiculous History.
Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben.
My name is Noel, citizen Null, that is Citizennal. Yes,
not a consumer. Well, you know, I do consume quite
a bit of things, but I like to think of
myself more as a conscientious citizen of these here United States.
Noel and I just for peek behind the curtain. We
(00:45):
have been in the studio for a while today, working
on working on a couple of different projects. Right. Yeah,
we have another show called Stuff They Don't Want You
to Know, and we just spent an hour and a
half talking about John F. Kennedy. So we're both a
little punchy, but hopefully that will translate into an entertaining
episode of ridiculous history. That's right, that's our show. Here
we are. So we've had a crazy time, you know,
(01:09):
starting this show and looking at not just single historical
episodes in isolation, we've been exploring the context in which
these events occur. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, And one
thing that I think fascinates both of us is how
stuff that would seem on the surface really small has
(01:33):
these universal, ubiquitous and important, uh implications. Absolutely, and that
is absolutely the case today with our topic of when
and why did America start calling its citizens consumers? Which
is such a good question. And before you brought this
(01:55):
to me, I had never thought about this. Like I
it just slid by my mind, and I was reading
so many different stories, you know, news stories, essays, creative
nonfiction where people, pundits, experts, authors used these phrases interchangeably,
which is kind of weird when you think about it,
(02:16):
you know. Uh So, there was a recent opinion piece
that was published in a political newspaper called The Hill.
And in this piece, which is titled how Trump's immigration
plans hurt American Citizens Pocketbooks, the author Maurice Goldman criticized
the Trump administration's plans for crackdown on immigration by pointing
(02:40):
to the cost of building the infamous border wall, the
cost of hiring enforcement agents, the cost of reducing legal
immigration channels, but a particular interest for our purposes today.
Goldman used the phrase consumer in in the body of
(03:04):
the text in the title it's citizen, but he notes
you the consumer will pay for you know, the the plans,
the political plans if this wall and stuff goes through.
And like you just said, I mean, is this an
issue of semantics or was this intentional? Um? And the
(03:24):
answer to that is pretty interesting. Um, it's hard to
say quite when this took place, but in the last
handful of years there has been an increasing tendency to
use the term consumer interchangeably with citizen. And that's even
when the conversation has to do with the economy. Yeah,
(03:45):
and again it's it seems like on the surface a
small thing, but political experts, growing numbers of political experts
are concerned with this, and they're arguing that the choice
of words signals a shift in how we uh see
ourselves as individuals participating in the United States, right, and
(04:07):
what our role is in American society. So the people
who are concerned are saying that this is moving the
individual away from this idea of citizenship working with others
in collaboration towards some common, greater good right, and toward
something else. Yes, I mean that's much more selfish and
(04:29):
an individualistic and based on the acquisition of things that
can also be turned around and applied to ideas. Or
the way our vote is almost equivalent to the way
we spend money exactly. And there's a professor named Jathan
(04:49):
Sadowski Jathan, Jathan j developed a list just now no
Jathan like Nathan, but with a J. I know, I've
never seen that one before. I know that's a new one.
Uh Here argues that using the term consumer interchangeably with
the term citizen has quote become part of our default discourse,
the normal way we view society and people, and he says,
(05:13):
just look at the recent presidential election. The consumer versus
citizen language is often used with analysts and pundits talk
about elections, and this goes to the point that that
Noel highlighted voters are just consumers with preferences, and the
election is a marketplace of products to choose from. To
(05:34):
continue to quote, in the store, we vote with our dollar.
We are told that elections are functionally the same thing.
You just use a ballot instead of a buck to
cast your vote. This understanding of democratic processes as a
marketplace is just one more place where the citizen is
overtaken by the consumer. End quote. And both of these
(05:55):
words have been around for centuries and centuries right. The
word citizen dates back to the thirteen hundreds. Originally it
meant the inhabitant of a city. Yeah, the entry and
the online Etymology Dictionary for citizen um says from site
citizen of the world translates in Greek to cosmopolites. Oh,
(06:19):
that's cool, that's a good one. On the other side,
the the evolution of citizen to mean what we take
it to mean today, a person who has both rights
in a society and responsibilities to that society. That didn't
come around until around sixteen ten. The term consumer arose
(06:40):
shortly after the original version of the term citizen. I
love the entry for that one in the online Etymology Dictionary.
It says quote one who squanders or wastes um agent
noun from consume in economic sense one who uses up
goods or articles opposite of producer, and that dates back
to seventeen Uh. Then it also says consumer goods is
(07:05):
attested from eighteen ninety um in consumers for a representative
basket of goods and services. And that actually is from
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yeah, so that's these are
These are legit sources, and no one is saying that
these words just suddenly emerged like in nineteen seventy or whatever,
(07:25):
the like many words in English. This is an evolving language, right,
and so a living language. So, like many other terms,
the term citizen and consumer have undergone evolution over the years,
and the question is what what these mean today? Right?
According to Michael Munger, who is the director of the Philosophy,
(07:50):
Politics and Economics Program at Duke University's Political Science Department,
the word consumer, although it existed, as we had said
for sent trees, it didn't really appear in print until
ben have you ever used done in a Google Ingram search?
I I only started because of this. Yeah, it's really interesting.
(08:13):
So you can actually like search for a combination of
words compared to words, and it will get all track
it over time as it appears in this you know,
vast online collection of books that Google has digitized. And
starting in eighteen hundred and going to the year two thousand,
this in gram search tracks the use of citizen versus consumer,
(08:34):
and this is in fractions of so starting in eighteen hundred,
citizen is a clear winner, with consumer very very low,
just like a tiny fleck above zero percent. And then
as time goes on, starting in around nineteen ten nine
to be precise, there is a significant spike in citizen
(08:57):
um and then and as this is going on, consumer
is kind of rising. Then there's a crossover point in
nineteen fifty six at which point consumer goes through the
roof UM and ending in two thousand. Consumer well above
citizen in terms of its use in literature. Right. Yeah.
(09:18):
And it's fascinating to see this in laid out in
an infographic form because Duel is absolutely correct. You can
see the the direct correlation. You can see the switch
point at which people from writers, authors at least started
preferring the term consumer to the term citizen, and now
(09:41):
it's used about three times as often. Uh. Monger theorizes
that this happened this, this change in the usage had
largely to do with the rise of progressive politics in
the twentieth century. And here's a quote from Monger quote.
The progressives primarily saw citizens as being helpless trapped by
arge forces, especially corporations, that citizens couldn't deal with. UM
(10:04):
and he attributes Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal social programs that
came about in the thirties, as well as Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society Effort in the sixties UM as reinforcing the
idea that participation in politics was mostly a way to
just get your share of the pie, you know, get
(10:25):
a piece. So it's it's less of a civic duty,
it's less of a what can I do for my
country and more of a what can my country do
for me? Exactly. And this increasing use of the term
consumer doesn't just apply to people who are writing about politics.
(10:46):
It applies to politicians themselves. And when we're talking about
President Johnson's Great Society stuff in the nineties sixties, we
are also examining the rise of something that would surprise
the average voter. Marketing, right, marketing, Yes, marketing, which means
(11:06):
that we are going to take a little bit of
a side trail into a man named Edward Burnet's and
Edward Bernez, as you know, is a is a guy
that you and I have spent a lot of time
on in the past. Yeah, he's sort of the big
grand Pappy of marketing. And this idea of selling things
(11:26):
to a mass audience including various methods from billboards, magazine
articles to later television think mad Men, you know the
television show, Um, the whole world that's depicted in that,
the Madison Avenue, UM kind of ad agency universe, um.
And it was for sellers of products like breakfast cereals
(11:47):
and cars and anti perch prints, all of these modern
things that everyone just had to have. Um. And today
you know, we can micro target people's preferences, you know,
using these campaigns in this massive amounts of data that
can be analyzed much much much more quickly than in
the past. Uh. And now it looks at individual voters
(12:09):
attitudes and their corresponding behavior um and can kind of
figure out what might be the best way to actually
reach them in the same way as you know, appealing
to somebody about a particular type of microwave meal. Right,
And that that in itself is important for us to
know that in itself is not inherently a bad thing. However,
(12:34):
it is an important thing, and it is crucial that
people be aware of what is happening. To tell me
a little bit about Bernet's Oh man, I'm so glad
you asked, Okay, so Edward Berne's get this nephew of
Sigmund Freud, true story Ampia coincidence, coincidence? Right? Uh? Edward
(12:58):
Edward Bernesee took a lot of psychological concepts and said, well,
how can we I hesitate to use the word weaponize,
but maybe maybe apply is a better word. He said,
how how can we apply these concepts about how the
workings of the human mind and translate them into quantifiable, predictable,
(13:24):
real world results. How can we push people not only
to make the decision we want them to make, but
to make them feel that it is their decision, that
they have agency in this choice. He has done so
much stuff, So I really appreciate that you mentioned the
concept of breakfast, right, so before Edward Burnet's the typical
(13:49):
breakfast in the in the United States would be something
like a cup of coffee and maybe a croissant or
as yes, yes, or you know, a bagel, a couple
of pieces of toast, maybe some butter. A bagel and toast.
That's a lot of carbs, dude. Yeah, you put the toast,
it's a it's a it's a toast sandwich. So you
(14:10):
get the bagel if the toast in between, that doesn't
sound very healthy. And that's actually kind of the point,
because what ended up being foisted upon the American consumer
was this idea of bacon for breakfast, right, yes, yeah,
Edward Berns, make no bones about it. Is the reason
that bacon became part of the American breakfast. Because without
(14:33):
getting too deep into it, here's what happened. In the
nineteen twenties, Edward Bernese was approached by a company called
the beach Nut Packing Company. They're the people who made
beech nut gum at the time, right, but they did
a lot of other stuff, and they had a lot
of other concerns. One of the big concerns was pork. Edward,
they asked the guy, we need to increase demand. We
(14:56):
have all this trash meat laying around, you know, how
do we uh a and foisted on the American public
right exactly just so. And he thought, well, we could
do the typical sort of advertisement at the time, where
we could just have somebody be like, hey, I'm cool
and where does suit and get a nice tie and
like bacon you should too, And that was, you know,
(15:18):
that was the approach that advertising used. But he did
something very different and he said, well, let me let
me conduct a quote unquote poll of doctors medical experts,
and let me let me twist the questions in such
a way that they will all end up agreeing or
appearing to agree that bacon is not only good for you,
(15:43):
but should be eaten by any person with half a
concern about their health early in the morning and give
them energy and substantial And that's the thing. It worked.
It not only did it work, but it continues to
work today. Edward Bernese, who could be the subject to
his own show, right, he went on to uh tie
(16:04):
smoking tobacco with women's suffrage. He went on to help
support propaganda pushing the American public, citizens or consumers, whatever
you want to call them, into supporting a coup in
South America. And he continues to influence things today. This
(16:25):
is one of the correlations, one of the one of
the points at which people stopped thinking about the average
voter as a citizen and started thinking about them as consumers. Well,
it's the way, you know, politicians have to essentially market
themselves uh and and and dress up their platforms in
(16:46):
such a way that appeals to different voting bases. Uh
and A lot of it is based on entirely based
on rhetoric, which you could, you know, kind of equate
to something like ad copy where it's like, sure, it's
technically true, and it's it's backed up by science or
like you know, fact, but at the end of the day,
it's this like packaged, curated version of the truth, and
(17:11):
that is the way things are today, and the government itself,
in fact, is is actually judged as if it were
a business, a consumer business. The American Customer Satisfaction Index
actually rates the federal government on how people feel about
their interactions with How am I how they feel? You
(17:32):
know what I'm saying. So there's Bernet's at work right now,
and it actually got a sixty percent positive rating in
which was up from sixty the previous year. So, um,
gonna'll be interested to know how how that ranks today, Yeah,
and the methodology behind it. People who have a problem
with this interchangeable use of citizen and consumer, uh, They
(17:54):
argue that there are fundamental differences between the two roles
in society and that they should not be confused. So
how about this. I want to outline some of these
proposed differences and see what you think. Sure, okay, So
is there an issue of morality? You know, earlier we
(18:17):
mentioned the concept of doing stuff for other people for
the greater good versus doing something for one's self. So
one of the proposed differences would be that the job
of any consumer is to always choose what works best
for them in the marketplace, regardless of any other considerations. Right,
(18:40):
that's what I do. I think that's that's also the
human condition, though, isn't it. You know? Yeah, But that
that there in lies the issue with this whole notion
of like being pulled away from the idea of being
part of a whole or being a member of a
team and going to a much more self serving attitude
that's kind of codified and bolstered by the use of
(19:02):
these these these words and the distinctions that they sort
of imply, I guess, right. Yeah, So then if a
by by this understanding, this difference is true, then by
virtue of voting, a consumer is saying what will make
me better directly now, whereas a citizen would be saying,
(19:23):
what can I do to improve the world conditions for
everyone from my neighbors? Yeah, yeah, like a rising tide
carries all vest And a good citizen then would be,
in their own way kind of kind of heroic or
very moral, that's what it sounds like, right, And a
good consumer would be getting the best deal. There's another difference,
(19:48):
which is that citizens are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty.
I'm doing my best to help the group, the community
of the nation, et cetera. I'm not sure how it's
going to work out, but I know my intentions are
what I believe to be good. Whereas a consumer says,
you know, if I'm if I'm paying for this service,
(20:09):
whether that's through time, whether that's through money, whether that's
through exchange of materials, then I need to be certain
that this transaction occurs, you know. So with with this idea, um,
there's the simplication that a citizen knows that society has
(20:31):
what HR departments around the world called areas of opportunity.
God do you remember that one? Do you know how
much I love these corporate terms? Yes? Yes, synergy Synergy
is their synergy and uh and cadence that's a new one,
making the rounds. Well, you know, the idea holds up though,
because the concept then would be that you and I
(20:54):
and everyone who has a vote understands that we can
play a part in improving society in whatever way we
think it should be improved, right, and that these problems
will not be fixed themselves. And then the on the
other side, the concept of a consumer would be that
(21:14):
someone expects to purchase essentially a product or a service,
and that the people providing that product or service, it's
on them to fix stuff. Right. So I voted for
you just do the thing, you know what I mean?
And uh, we we know that this is a very
(21:35):
very contentious thing. Well let's go through a little business.
This is a ridiculous history. Um, let's just talk a
little bit about the history of the idea of humans
as consumers. There's a fantastic article by Frank Trentman in
the Atlantic that has a couple of great quotes from
the famous American thinker Adam Smith, one of which is
a consumption is the soul, end and purpose of all production,
(21:59):
which was m his treatise, I guess you could call
it The Wealth of Nations from seventeen seventy six. That's
a pretty famous quote. A lesser known quote from him
that really sums up this whole idea comes from seventeen
fifty nine The Theory of Moral Sentiments, UM, where he
kind of really hones in on the as Trentman puts it,
(22:20):
the social and psychological impulses that cause us to want
to get a bunch of stuff, knickknacks, patty wax, gadgets, um.
And this quote again from Smith does a really good
job of summing all that up. He observed that people
(22:41):
wanted to quote stuff their pockets with little conveniences and
then buying coats with more pockets to carry even more
by themselves. Tweezer cases, elaborate snuff boxes, and other bobbles
might not have much use, but Smith pointed out what
mattered was that people looked at them as means of happiness. Um.
(23:02):
And he goes on to say that it was in
people's imaginations that these objects became part of a harmonious
system and made the pleasures of wealth grand and beautiful
and noble. And even you know, ancient Greek thinkers philosophers
from you know, Plato to St. Augustine Um, they kind
(23:24):
of condemned the pursuit of of stuff as as being
inherently wicked and self serving. Um. So there is this
history of the idea of being a citizen as being
much more important, and if it feels like throughout history,
obviously there there is that selfish impulse. But as a whole,
(23:45):
civilization and societies have largely maintained because of this notion
of you know, the whole is more important than the
individual parts and that we're all banding together to make
a better life for everyone. Yeah. Right, And this leads
us to something a pretty interesting theory that you've probably
(24:06):
heard of, which is the tragedy of the commons. And
the tragedy of the commons is this economic theory that says, uh,
if you're in a shared resource system, right, so, you're
in a community where everybody has like a common good
it's called water, air, nine LPs. Who knows, just like
(24:26):
it's something for the people, the way that you and
I typically order fries. Yeah. Um. The idea is that
when individual users are acting independently according to their own
self interests, they will tend to behave in ways that
deplete or spoil those common resources because everybody, everybody wants
(24:52):
their piece of the pie and would prefer not to
have to help create the pie, right And obviously, so
many people have argued complex ideological questions based on how
to address this dilemma of individuals trying to improve society,
(25:16):
to take a line from the Simpsons to ambigen society
or two improve themselves, even if such a thing might
have dangerous consequences right or unforeseen consequences down the road,
and it might sound. It might sound, folks, as if
Noel and I are dwelling on semantics, but we are not,
(25:40):
because it turns out that science backs this up. In
a two thousand twelve study in the journal Psychological Science UH,
they found that choice of words can exert a subtle
influence upon how we see ourselves, which then you know,
naturally influences how we behave. So in one part of
(26:00):
the study, people who answered a quote consumer response survey
tended to express more materialistic, self centered values. People who
did a survey that was called a citizen survey tended
to behave in a more a less selfish way. And
(26:21):
another part of the same survey, the researchers looked at
subjects with gave them a hypothetical situation where people um
had to join together and share water from a well,
and they were labeled as either consumers or citizens. And
the members of the study that got the consumer label
tended to be completely distrustful of their cohorts and just
(26:45):
didn't want to share the water. They just were a
little crotchety about it, and they did not feel as
though they were on a team or in partnership with
the other subjects, and just felt overall less tied to
or responsible for the experience, and you know well being
honestly of their compatriots, as opposed to those who were
(27:06):
labeled citizens, who felt just the opposite, right, right, And
now we we if we are called one name or another,
it tends to affect our behavior. Now we see this
article by Maurice Goldman becomes even more important. I don't
want to say insidious, but I do want to say important,
(27:26):
because you know, on some level it might feel I
don't know, condescending or dominutive to say, oh, you are
not so smart, right, you are easily influenced, right if somebody,
if somebody calls me a name, that shouldn't influence my
behavior already, but apparently it does. Apparently we are a
(27:48):
little bit easier to steer than we would like to think.
And this goes back to the Bernese thing, right, the
idea of a of a citizen versus a consumer in
terms of active versus passive rules. Did you know that
the I'm sure you've heard the use of the term
(28:08):
consumption um to refer to tuberculosis, you know, so, I
mean it was definitely had very very negative connotations of
going back to The Atlantic article from Frank treatmanny as
a section where he talks about some of the history
of the term consumption uh and the as he calls it,
the heavy burden that it carried. And it was originally
from the term the Latin term consumer, which first presented
(28:31):
itself in French in the twelfth century and then into
English and other European languages later. And of course it
meant as I said, with the etymological um origins earlier,
using up wasting kind of implied of food or any
other um consumables for lack of a better term um.
But like I said, the idea of tuberculosis or wasting
(28:55):
disease being called consumption because it had this inherently like
it just eats you up. And that was very much
a sign of being irresponsible and not looking out for
the greater good of your community or family, what have you,
not being a good citizen. And we would be remiss
if we didn't just mention for a second everyone's favorite
(29:16):
fictional consumptive, which is Val Kilmer playing Doc Holiday in
Tombstone Bloody Rack. Yeah, man, what does he say? Who's who? Huckleberry?
I'm your Huckleberty Oh Yeah, I'm your huck You're my Huckleberry,
and Romance for the Ages, Romance for the Ages, and
(29:38):
history for the Pages, which rhymes but doesn't really make
sense if you think about it. So. Josh Passik is
an assistant professor of Communications studies at the University of Michigan,
and he he draws some conclusions based on this shift,
(29:58):
and he says it seems to underscore a shift away
from viewing Americans is having responsibility our political system and
toward a more individualist view of what it means to
be American. So, in his mind, the role of a
citizen is more active and the role of a consumer
is more passive. And in his mind, these are two
(30:18):
different things, right, They're not synonyms. He says, your job
as an American citizen requires that you fulfill key democratic
norms such as being informed, deliberating about political issues, and
participating in civic and political life. As an American consumer,
he says, your actions are relevant only to the extent
that they respond to economic incentives. The responsibility to be
(30:41):
engaged and participatory is not your own, but instead depends
upon a system that is oriented to bring you in.
Unpack that for us ben Okay, sure, I would love to.
Uh so again. The idea, the idea of citizenship as
a responsibility, right, Like, I don't if you're a citizen,
you're not just supposed to show up and vote. You're
(31:05):
supposed to put some research time into it, right, and
be be aware. And you know, let's I mean not
for nothing, It's true that most people don't know their
congressional district. Yeah, I mean, if I'm being honest, I
voted the other day and there were a whole lot
of names on the ballot that I was not familiar with.
There were some races that I had followed very closely,
(31:25):
and I knew what I was signing up for. But
you know, it's very difficult to be completely informed about
every aspect of the political process. But I guess what
the takeaway here is is that you know, just you
got to try to do your homework and consider beyond
just you know, your personal stake, what might be good
for your entire community. Because you know, with names that
(31:47):
can recognize on the ballot, if I had voted for
somebody just out of sheer, you know, randomness, What if
I accidentally voted for a monster or voted to keep
an incumbent in power that had done bad things for
the community that needed to be replaced. You know. So, uh,
if if I had gone in with that consumer mentality
about what's good for me, you know, and and maybe
(32:09):
I'm guilty of that in a certain sense, I would
only know what directly impacted me, Whereas if I had
gone in with much more of a you know, citizen,
good citizen attitude, then maybe I would have thought about
more what would affect areas that don't even affect me directly.
You know. It's a it's a dilemma, and we are
we are talking about the influence of behavior. We want
(32:31):
to be very clear that we're not We're not a
show that's going to like lecture people about politics. Yeah
for us, this is for us. This is a dilemma. Though.
It's a dilemma, and it's kind of a thought experiment too. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah,
that's a good way to see it, because the question
and becomes you know, is one somehow better than the
other or they just different? I would say that they're different.
(32:54):
I would say that everybody has played the part of
a citizen. Everybody's played the part of it can sumer
at the same time, you know, you're not going into
uh Arby's for instance, who is not a sponsor of
the show of just thinking like different is good that
you're still around. Yeah, they're still getting funny commercials, but like,
you know, nobody's walking into Arby's and saying, you know,
(33:15):
at the at the soda fountain or at the little
ketchup stand, no one's saying like, what can I do
to make this ketchup stand better for everyone who comes
after me? Yeah? And you know, speaking to uh pass
ex quote about you know, as an American consumer, your
actions are relevant only to the extent they respond to
economic incentives, meaning and sometimes those incentives are just personal
(33:39):
fulfillment and you know pleasure. Uh and your jobs not
to read state you already said, Ben, but your job
as an American citizen requires you fulfill key democratic norms
just being informed and deliberating about political issues. So the
idea that uh, there is this gray area or this
kind of like fusion between the notion of a citizen
and a consumer is potentially problematic for people making choices
(34:02):
in in elections that actually help others or that if
that affect the greater good, If everyone's just voting for
you know what, we'll do good for themselves. And that
also plays into how politicians market themselves, you know, right right,
the same the same techniques that Edward Bernese pioneered are
(34:23):
now present not only in advertising, but are present in
a very real way in the political sphere. I gotta
tell you, man, did you ever did you did you
ever watch c SPAN? I mean, if if there's something
really crucial on, um, But now I have not not
(34:43):
just watch it like my grandpapa used to them. Yeah,
I used I used to. UM. I used to watch
c SPAN with my grandmother as well. Um, when Golden
Girls wasn't on. She loved Golden Girls. Hehaw and c
SPAN beautiful woman. You know it seems like a good mix.
And uh and uh. One of the things that got
me was years ago we were watching c SPAN at
(35:07):
her house and uh, a congress person was referring to
a a bill they were trying to pass as a product.
And then they said, we're going to get this product
out at the end of this time frame, and this
product is going to you know, be great for companies,
(35:29):
all interests of parties, stakeholders. And I didn't understand the
term because why would you call something like that a product.
You're selling it, You're selling it to your constituents. And
this guy, Frank Tripman, who wrote the article from the
Atlantic that I was talking about a little bit UM
is a professor of history at the University of London,
(35:50):
and he wrote a fantastic book called Empire of Things
How he became a world of consumers from the fifteenth
century to the one UM and he thinks that the
blurred jinction between these two UH cohorts, which ultimately have
become kind of the same thing, consumer and citizen, make
it really hard for people to come together to solve problems,
which is essentially what I was trying to get out.
(36:12):
We're both trying to get at ben Uh. And this quote,
I think really sums it all up nicely. Quote not
all consumers see the world in the same way, and
hence concerted action is very difficult. That's what I was
trying to get at. Where you know, when you have
a politician that's marketing themselves to a particular voter base,
and the um the desires of that voter base are
(36:32):
kind of a conflagration of like different UH sort of
self serving desires. So it's very difficult to like pick
out a platform or a thing or like to appeal
to all of these different you know angles and get
elected kind of requires some weird backwards logic and convoluted thinking,
you know, especially when so many of those interests might
(36:55):
be contradictory. Exactly right here we are seen here, we here,
we are. But history doesn't stop here. I have to
wonder know what future historians will make of this shift,
which again occurred without my knowledge at all. Like I
(37:16):
I did not notice other than my spider sense tingling
when I heard things laws referred to as products. Is
totally whooshed over my head. Man, I don't know. It's
a little insidious though, right, it kind of happens. It
just sort of kind of creeps in, you know, without
you even realize. Again, so are we citizens? Are we consumers?
(37:36):
I think it's a it's a choice we have to make.
I mean, obviously we're consumers when it comes to like,
you know, I like buying stuff. I like, you know,
nice clothes and things like that. But when you start
integrating that into the political process and how you vote,
as though it we're spending money and as though you're
being marketed to. That's problematic, I think, and it's an
(37:57):
interesting shift in history, and it's more than a little ridiculous.
It is, it is more than a bit ridiculous. We
hope that you find this dilemma or this this interesting
differentiation as fascinating as we do, and we'd like to
hear your thoughts. So please write into us and let
(38:18):
us know if you think this is a big deal,
if you think this is just relative, relatively small matter
of semantics. Uh, And most importantly, let us know if
you have found other linguistic shifts in your own experience,
and let us know what you think the implications of
(38:39):
those might be. You can write to Noel and I
at ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. But that's all.
You can find us on the internet to. Yeah, we're
on the social media. We've got a Facebook page, Ridiculous History.
Just google that and and give us a like. And also,
if you dig the show, please check us out on
iTunes and write us a nice review. That helps kind
(39:00):
of boost the show and the algorithm and all that,
and hopefully well people can discover it. Yeah, because we like,
you know, we like doing the show and we'd like
to continue doing it, so thanks for joining us for
this episode and we hope to see you next time
on Ridiculous History.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.